Judd Farmhouse

Judd Farmhouse

A former farmhouse of circa late 16th century date, with a circa mid-17th century phase of remodelling and extension. The building is of framed construction with brick nogging. On the front (north) elevation, the ground floor framing features brick nogging with diagonally-laid brickwork in the sections below the middle rail. The first floor is whitewashed and plastered. The first floor of the main block is tile-hung at the left (east) gable end and on the rear (south) elevation, which is clad or underbuilt in brick. The roof is covered with peg tiles and features brick chimney stacks.

The building presents an overall L-plan arrangement: a north-facing main range of single depth, three rooms wide, with a front right (north-west) wing at right angles. The late 16th-century house comprises the two eastern rooms of the main block. This original structure was a two-cell storeyed house consisting of a narrow, unheated service room to the left and a hall/kitchen to the right, with a framed stack at the left end of the hall/kitchen. The service room contained a stair in the front left corner. The original entrance may have opened into a lobby facing the framed stack, which did not extend the full width of the building.

During the circa mid to late 17th century, the house underwent remodelling and enlargement. The framed stack was removed and replaced with a brick stack at the opposite end of the hall, beyond the right end wall of the original house, creating a parlour with a heated chamber above. Beyond this stack, a kitchen was added with a right end stack and a front right unheated service wing with a cellar off the kitchen. The entrance to the main range may have been repositioned to a lobby facing the parlour stack. The mid to late 17th-century plan largely survives intact, although the entrance to the house has since been moved to the rear, into the kitchen. The kitchen stack and fireplace have been removed since 1958. A possibly 19th-century stack has been added to the service wing on the inner wall, and an outshut on the outer (west) wall of the service wing may also date to the 19th century. A circa 1940s rear conservatory addition extends the main range.

The exterior displays two storeys with an asymmetrical three-window north front, and the wing gable end has three windows. The framing, where exposed, is of large scantling. The main range has three ground floor and three first floor casement windows with circa early 19th-century cast iron casements with diamond panes; one is a 20th-century replacement. The gable end of the wing features similar windows; one ground floor window is 20th-century, replacing an 18th-century door, as recorded in the National Monuments Record photograph. The purlins project through the gable of the wing, suggesting it may originally have had bargeboards. The corner post of the wing is rebated, indicating that the ground floor framing was not originally exposed between the wall plates. Both structures have gable-ended roofs with brick stacks featuring corbelled coping.

The interior retains good survival of 16th and 17th-century features. The right-hand room (the kitchen) displays plain exposed carpentry with a chamfered and stopped middle rail to the wing. The parlour fireplace features chamfered brick jambs, somewhat damaged, and a chamfered lintel. A crossbeam marks the position of the former framed stack, with a mortise on the east side probably indicating the original width of the stack. The circa mid-16th-century longitudinal ceiling beam has jewel step stops, and the joists are also chamfered and stopped. The service room at the left end of the main range retains its original closely-spaced joists of large scantling. The 17th-century chamber fireplace is intact with brick jambs and a chamfered lintel.

The roof structure demonstrates exceptional survival. The circa mid-16th-century clasped purlin roof construction remains intact, with the main timbers of the heavily soot-encrusted timber-framed stack. The extent of smoke-blackening shows that the stack did not extend the full width of the building. The roof of the circa mid-17th-century wing is also of clasped purlin design but of slighter scantling than the 16th-century roof. The attic room in the wing is accessed through a doorway in a closed partition with raking queen struts.

This is an interesting two-phase traditional house with a well-preserved interior.